Nick Gibb: Despite the fact that the Government inherited a public finance deficit of £156 billion, we have been able to say that there will be no cuts in front-line funding for schools, Sure Start or 16 to 19 funding.

Michael Gove: I know that the hon. Gentleman has a number of great schools in his constituency that have benefited from investment, not least Manchester academy, which is achieving outstanding results. Manchester is approaching the conclusion of its final business case for specific funding in the Building Schools for the Future programme. I want to make sure that before we go any further we strip out any bureaucratic costs with which either Manchester's council tax payers or Manchester's teachers might be saddled to ensure that we get the maximum amount of spending to the front line.

Michael Gove: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that funding under the Building Schools for the Future programme had been allocated on the basis of deprivation, not of the state or dilapidation of the building. I will consider the two schools that he mentions and write to him.

Heidi Alexander: I thank the Secretary of State for his answers on the BSF programme, but I am afraid that I am still not clear on the detail. As a former director of Lewisham's local education partnership, I should be grateful to him if he confirmed whether the funding commitments that underpin the strategic partnering agreements between local authorities and their private sector partners will be honoured? Lewisham council would be grateful for any reassurance that he could provide.

Neil Carmichael: The Secretary of State will know that there are some excellent schools in Stroud. He has visited one of them, Amberley school. What provision, guidance or support will there be for schools that want to become academies which are not so good, are struggling, but see a future for themselves as academies?

Tim Loughton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that very important subject, on which we in opposition did a lot of work. Despite all the well-intentioned reforms and the dedication of front-line professionals, the safeguarding of children in this country is still not working properly. That is why I should like to inform the House that, as we first announced in opposition in February, we have decided to commission Professor Eileen Munro of the London School of Economics to carry out an independent review leading to recommendations that support good-quality, child-focused front-line safeguarding practice in children's social care; and, we will strip away the bureaucracy that has grown up too much around safeguarding in recent years.

Jack Straw: I will make a little more progress before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
	For seven years after the 1999 change, the absence of any clear consensus blocked further reform. It will be recalled that in early 2003, this House voted against every single one of seven alternative propositions put before it, ranging from an all-appointed to an all-elected House of Lords. I took over responsibility for Lords reform, in that time-honoured passage from Foreign Secretary to Leader of the House, and duly established a cross-party group. Its key conclusions, which worked very well, were set out in a February 2007 Green Paper.
	Thankfully, in March 2007 this House voted emphatically in favour of two consistent propositions-an 80% or 100% elected House of Lords-and against all other choices. That proposition for a wholly or mainly elected House has been the foundation for progress since. The cross-party group re-met for 15 months and did a great deal of detailed work on how an elected Lords might operate, and its conclusions were contained in the July 2008 White Paper.
	At the most recent general election-for the first time-all three parties were clearly committed to action to secure an elected House of Lords. Further work to ensure that should be straightforward: a great deal has already been done, including, as the Deputy Prime Minister knows, the drafting of many of the key clauses to form the central part of any Bill. I pledge that my party will work constructively on that with him and his Administration, and with luck, we may be able to mark the centenary of the first Parliament Act with legislation finally to meet its long-term goal.
	The proposal for a referendum on voting reform is another long-running issue in British politics. It took the expenses scandal for broad agreement to emerge that at the very least the British people should be given the opportunity to decide whether they wish to continue with the existing first-past-the-post system or to move to the alternative vote system. Legislation for an AV referendum was agreed earlier this year by the House by a very substantial majority of 365 to 187. That would have become law by the general election but for the refusal of the Conservative party to allow it to go through in the so-called wash-up. I am glad that the rather spurious objections that the Conservatives raised then have now dissolved. We shall, of course, support clauses on AV if they are put before the House in a similar form as last time.

Jack Straw: First, that was quite a long time after 1832. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman might recall, the vote was originally given to women over 30 in 1918, and then extended to those over 21 in 1928.
	Let me come to the partisan heart of the Government's constitutional proposals: the plans to cut parliamentary seats, redraw boundaries and speed up individual registration. If those proposals were implemented, they would disfranchise hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of our citizens, predominantly the young and members of lower-income groups. Seats would be cut and boundaries fundamentally altered by rigid mathematical formulae devised on the basis of the current electoral register.
	According to the Electoral Commission, however, some 3.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register, and that is just in England and Wales. Earlier this year, the commission reported
	"under-registration is concentrated among specific social groups, with the registration rates being especially low among young people, private renters and those who have recently moved home. The highest concentrations of under-registration are most likely to be found in metropolitan areas, smaller towns and cities with large student populations, and coastal areas with significant population turnover and high levels of social deprivation."
	The commission's study established that in Glasgow 100,000 eligible voters might be missing from the register, quite sufficient to raise all Glasgow seats to the electoral average for Great Britain and to provide for one additional constituency.
	Cutting seats and redrawing boundaries in that way, without taking account of the missing voters, will produced a profoundly distorted electoral map of Britain. The map will be even further distorted if this boundary review is undertaken, as the Government have proposed, in tandem with the premature roll-out of individual voter registration, because that process will knock many more eligible people off the register-hundreds of thousands of them.
	We are in favour of individual registration. Indeed, it was I who, last year, presented proposals for a new law, which received all-party agreement. But as all the parties agreed just nine months ago, to be fair, the process will take both time and money.

Jack Straw: That is the aspiration, and I do not for a second doubt the good faith of the hon. Lady. I am glad to hear her endorse those proposals-now, sadly, from the Back Benches. As she knows, however, because we had detailed and collaborative discussions on the issue, if the process for individual registration is rushed-and the phrase used in the coalition agreement is "speed this up"-the consequence will be not what she and we seek, but what happened in Northern Ireland. As the Electoral Commission spelt out, what happened in Northern Ireland in 2002 was that a sudden change in the system of electoral registration, although there was a centralised system, led to the immediate loss of nearly 120,000 names-nearly 10%-from the register. The commission said
	"The new registration process disproportionately impacted on young people and students, people with learning disabilities, people with disabilities generally and those living in areas of high social deprivation."

Jack Straw: We are not wrong. It is interesting that whenever Ministers have sought to explain this, they have tied themselves in knots. In the very first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, on the day of the Queen's Speech, the poor benighted Deputy Leader of the House got tied in knots not only by Labour Members but by most of the Conservative Members. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to spell out how this is going to work and, above all, to withdraw this ludicrous and undemocratic proposal. I say to him, in the full hearing of a packed Front Bench, that the Deputy Leader of the House also put on record that the Bill would not be guillotined, so that we could forget about programme motions, and that it would be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but it might never come out of the House, such is the controversy behind it.
	Constitutional reform is fundamental for any democracy that wants to renew itself and make itself responsive to the needs of an ever-evolving electorate. The Opposition are in favour of reform that will strengthen Parliament and the democratic process, and we will work constructively to achieve measures with that objective in mind. As it stands, this package of proposals contains far too many partisan political fixes, and is not so much new politics as an old-fashioned stitch-up between the two oldest parties in the House. We oppose those changes and I commend my amendment to the House.

Nicholas Clegg: I thank the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for opening today's debate, which he did at considerable length-so much so that I am increasingly attracted to the idea of time limits on speeches.
	The right hon. Gentleman spoke with great knowledge and at times some generosity about our proposed programme. That generosity is no wonder given what we are proposing: a referendum on the alternative vote-a Labour manifesto pledge; the power of recall-a Labour manifesto pledge; moves to reform party funding, fixed-term Parliaments and an elected Second Chamber-all Labour manifesto pledges. In fact, never before will a Government have delivered quite so many of Labour's election promises. Who would have thought it would be a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition that finally got around to doing that?
	I recognise of course that the right hon. Gentleman has great authority on those matters. His Government, in their early days, had a clear reformist streak-devolution, freedom of information and progress on Lords reform. Unfortunately, that momentum was lost, but after the right hon. Gentleman's speech today perhaps that zeal for political reform, which Labour lost in government, will now be rediscovered in opposition.
	I have heard the right hon. Gentleman's concerns, particularly his lengthy concerns about the boundary review, which seem a little coloured by the almost unsettling suspicion that there is a political plot at every turn. I shall seek to address some of his concerns, although I shall leave debate about the merits or otherwise of the 1832 Act to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and other historians. I shall focus primarily on the constitutional reforms being pursued by the Government, for which I have direct responsibility, although I shall say a few words about some of the issues raised by the Opposition that will be taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. She will pick up those issues later.
	On the constitutional side, yes, of course we will need to work out the precise detail of the reforms we are proposing, but I sincerely hope that their underlying principles will bring both sides of the House together. Despite any differences, we all share a single ambition: to restore people's faith in their politics and their politicians. The Government's plans will do just that, because our programme turns a page on Governments who hoard power, on Parliaments that look inwards rather than outwards, and on widespread disengagement among people who feel locked out of decisions that affect their everyday lives. This is a moment when together we have a real opportunity to change our politics for good.

Kevin Brennan: Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister could clarify the question I put to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) earlier. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us with a straight face exactly how he alighted on the figure of 55% rather than 54%, 56% or even 66% in his proposals? What was the logic of 55%-straight-faced?

Chris Bryant: The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to hoarding power. Will he explain the length of time that he is talking about-the five-year term-bearing in mind that, since 1832, the average peacetime Parliament has lasted for considerably less than four years, at three years and eight months. Australia and New Zealand have three-year Parliaments. The countries with five-year Parliaments are Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and France. Which is he measuring on?

Nicholas Clegg: That is a problem, and that is exactly why the acceleration of the individual voter registration system must be done in a way that successfully addresses that problem, rather than exacerbates it.
	The right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues basically have a choice about the issue of a referendum on the alternative vote and the linked issue of a boundary review. Either he tries to see the issue-slightly neurotically-through the prism of pure party interest, whereby all he wants to do is to adopt a defensive position to protect his own party's arithmetical standing in this House, or he and his colleagues should in my view be prepared to engage with the serious issue at hand, which is that constituencies are unequal, the weight of people's votes is unequal and that that is simply not an acceptable position at a time when we have this great opportunity to renew our democracy from top to toe. That is a choice that he should make.
	On everything from this matter to the 55% threshold, I would say two things. First, it is a political choice for Labour Members as to whether they want to leap straight from government, having failed to move on all these things, to outright oppositionism driven by the slightly paranoid sense that everything is targeted at them and no one else, or can engage seriously in what I believe is a promising moment in our political history to reform things, and to reform things for good.

Nicholas Clegg: Urgency? The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have had 13 years to do this. How often are they going constantly to ask us to do things urgently when we have had only three weeks and they had 13 years? Of course we need to find the 3.5 million people who are not on the register, alongside the progress towards individual voter registration, but I say this to him: please do not sit there all high and mighty and pretend that we are somehow responsible for a problem that he and his colleagues in government created over the past decade.

Alun Michael: Given the limited time, I will concentrate on crime reduction, the work of the police and community cohesion.
	The slaughter in Cumbria last week showed how difficult it is to anticipate and prevent every event, but so far politicians of every hue have wisely resisted the temptation to produce instant solutions or demand legislation. The only instant comment that I have seen was a suggestion about merging police forces. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will treat that favourite Whitehall recipe with deep suspicion. The previous Conservative police Minister, whom I shadowed in the mid-1990s, was David Maclean and he resisted an over-centralised approach. I commend his approach to the new Ministers present. The larger the force, the more remote its leaders from the community that they police. Although there is tension between dealing with terrorism and major incidents and policing local communities, good management and co-operation are the answer rather than structural change.
	We had a good example of that in Cardiff on Saturday. The bigots of the English Defence League came to our city to spread hatred and division. The police had to handle them and those of us who marched to oppose them. They had to do that on a day when the South Africans were playing Wales at rugby, the West Indians were in town for a cricket match and the Stereophonics were performing in concert. Hundreds of police were ready for problems and I commend all the forces who sent officers to help South Wales police maintain order. I also commend the good sense and good humour with which South Wales police managed the day. In the end, a couple of dozen English Defence League members came and went, while 1,000 people of all colours and religions marched under the banner of Unite Against Fascism in a quiet, peaceful demonstration that had real authority and truly reflected Cardiff's nature as a multiracial city that is determined to maintain harmony. We want to celebrate difference and value each other's strengths instead of looking for division. The police lead showed that they get that point.
	My second home truth from Cardiff is the success of our violence reduction project. It is not led by police or politicians, but by a medic, Professor Jonathan Shepherd, an A and E specialist, who brought his skills as a scientist to an analysis of violence. Basically, he asked why the number and seriousness of injuries in car accidents were decreasing while injuries from violence were increasing. Over more than a decade, painstaking analysis has revealed a lot about violence in our city-things about which we thought we knew, but did not. Joint work by the NHS, the police and other agencies through the local crime reduction partnership has worked-measured not by police statistics or arrests, but by a drop of more than 40% in the number of victims coming to A and E for treatment. That is a real drop.
	We need such a scientific approach to crime and policing, and I commend to Ministers the report on justice reinvestment that was published by the Select Committee on Justice a few months ago. Good work is being done by the police, Crown prosecutors and prison officers, but our report showed the need for better co-ordination and greater co-operation across agencies, both inside and outside the criminal justice system.
	Too much focus on agency priorities and targets blurs the clarity of purpose to which all parts of the criminal justice system ought to contribute. In particular, the Sentencing Guidelines Council needs clearly to focus on the extent and gravity of reoffending. I hope that Ministers in the new Government will require great clarity of purpose from that body, which is dominated by judges. I am not sure that that is a good thing, because as Victim Support told the Committee very clearly in its evidence, other than not to have been victims in the first place, victims want confidence that they will not become victims again in future. That must be our purpose in this House.
	I am proud to have played a part in drawing up the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. That measure made life hard for the bad guys and avoided burdening the good guys with bureaucracy, and it has worked, so I commend to Ministers the idea of extending its remit beyond agriculture and food packaging to industries such as construction and catering. The temptation for Ministers-and indeed for Members of Parliament-is to legislate when we see a problem, but that is not always the right answer. The challenge is to design legislation that works. As Gibbon warns in "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", laws rarely prevent what they forbid.
	I urge Ministers to heed that warning in relation to the growing issue of internet-related crime. There is a consensus that teamwork is the answer, with the Government working with industry, MPs of all parties and civil society to design out internet-related crime. The United Kingdom has led the world on internet governance. If that term puts people off, may I point out that the governance of banks seemed boring and esoteric before everything went pear-shaped? Governance matters. A partnership approach is vital, because the internet is so fast-changing, chameleon-like and universal that traditional legislative approaches will not work. There is not the time.
	Let us promote a co-operative approach to internet safety as well as to the more mundane aspects of criminal activity in our local communities. What counts is what works-what counts is what reduces crime and the number of people who are made victims. The partnership approach works, and I commend it to Ministers and the House as the right approach.

David Davis: With only seven minutes, I must be brief on the issues I want to raise.
	The Deputy Prime Minister will not be surprised that I am a strong supporter of much of his great repeal Bill which, after all, is the natural conclusion of the great battle over freedom that has taken place in the past five years. I hope that that Bill represents a step change not only in the law, but in attitudes in the Government, so that they will not think that in order to catch the guilty, we must punish the innocent, or that to prevent terrorism and crime, we must treat the whole country as suspects. If that step change happens, it will augur well for the future.
	It is a paradox that the new politics is ushering in a return to some ancient rights. The reform of the libel laws re-establishes freedom of speech; the reform of freedom of information re-establishes open government; and reform of the DNA database re-establishes the presumption of innocence. In addition, the prevention of unnecessary intercepts, along with measures against the retention of data and the proposals on CCTV, re-establish privacy. All those are worth while, and by themselves would justify the existence of the coalition if nothing else did.
	Of the three pillars of our national traditions-liberty, justice and democracy-those proposals support the first two, so I offer two cheers for the great repeal Bill, not three. The reason for two rather than three cheers is that some things are missing from it. There is nothing on those great blots on our judicial landscape, by which I mean, first, the use of secret trials in which suspects-usually, but not always, terrorist suspects-are tried without knowing the allegations or the evidence against them, which is completely inimical to British law. That was introduced by the previous Government and I hope that this Government will remove it.
	There is nothing yet on control orders-another measure inimical to British traditions, using house arrest and effective internal exile for suspects rather than for the convicted. There is still nothing yet-I hope we will see it and I hope that the Home Secretary will respond to the point when she concludes the debate-on reduction of the 28-day period for which prisoners can be held without charge. We fought over 42 and 90 days, but 28 is still too many, and I hope that the Government will take that on board. I trust that these are deferrals, not oversights, by the Government.
	Another issue for the Government to think about in connection with the great repeal Bill is the need to revisit the Digital Economy Act 2010. It was passed in the final stages of the previous Parliament, and it was an error for us to allow it through, as we did in the wash-up.

David Davis: The hon. Gentleman restates my wish for the Government to take that issue on board. I hope that they do, and that they do so in the great repeal Bill as part of a process that the Deputy Prime Minister quite rightly laid out-a process in which the Government were listening for proposals on things to be repealed.
	The trouble with the Queen's Speech from my point of view rather coincides, I am afraid, with some of the comments made by the shadow Lord Chancellor, particularly when he quoted from an article that I wrote for the newspapers about the 55% proposal. Indeed, I have problems with three elements of the proposed Bill. One element is the alternative vote, which is no surprise; one is the issue of recall, which I believe the Deputy Prime Minister has gone some way to meeting. However, the 55% requirement is undoubtedly a significant constitutional change. We cannot sidestep that fact. It was not in a manifesto, so the proposal is, by definition, likely to be ill thought through and to require greater consideration by the House.
	The issue has been represented as one that is a necessity for fixed-term Parliaments. I am in favour of fixed-term Parliaments and I have absolutely no problem with the Prime Minister giving up his right to call an election at any point in time. He can do that and I am happy that he has done so; it is entirely proper. By contrast, altering the circumstances under which Parliament can dismiss a failing Government is a massive constitutional change, which goes to the heart of Parliament's ability to hold Government to account. One of the leitmotifs of this Government, I hope, will be giving Parliament more powers, not fewer. Such a major change would normally involve prior consultation, a prior manifesto commitment, a White Paper and ideally both the acquiescence of the Opposition and a referendum. That is the sort of pattern that should precede a major change in the constitution.
	Let us think about what the proposal entails and whether we can give it the sort of scrutiny and reform that it needs. For a start, it has not been very clearly explained and it may have changed to some extent in the course of negotiations, but it is basically in two component parts. One part-and I do not think that the shadow Lord Chancellor understood this-is that a vote of confidence will still exist at 50% plus one. What usually happens now under such circumstances is that the royal prerogative is exercised to judge whether to have a Dissolution thereafter or to allow a reforming of some other Government. That is the current situation. What is being proposed, I think, is replacing that system with a Scottish-type situation under which if, 28 days after a vote of confidence, no Government can be formed, Dissolution will then automatically occur. That is my understanding of the proposal as it now stands, and it is based on what happens in the Scottish Parliament. However, I have to say-and the Scottish nats will have to forgive me-that the Scottish Parliament does not represent an independent state. For the Scottish First Minister not to exist, or to be a lame duck or retired and not replaced for 28 days, would be a problem for Scotland, but it would not be a disaster internationally.
	The nature of confidence votes is that they happen only four times a century. That is the first point. Secondly, confidence votes almost always happen under circumstances of crisis-wars, depressions, breakdowns in society. Under such circumstances, for us not to have an effective Prime Minister for 28 days seems untenable. Let me say to the Deputy Prime Minister that I hope that those on the Front Bench will take that point on board, because as it stands, what is proposed is not a zombie Government, but at least a zombified country for 28 days, and possibly at a difficult time.
	What is the other part-the 55%-for? It is for dissolving the House without the embarrassment of a vote of confidence and for the Executive, effectively, to use their power-their whipping capability-to dissolve the House. That does not seem to be a proper thing for us to do as a Government. It is not the sort of approach that I would expect from the new politics, frankly. That is why I have some sympathy for the suspicious view that says, "Why 55% and not 66%?", when the Government have 56 or 57% of the vote. That approach diminishes the proposals and it diminishes the Bills that the Government are bringing before the House. In truth, I would like to see my Government-because that is how I see them: as very much representing my views-putting that aside and recognising that it is something that the House will not take.

Hazel Blears: I am a little worried that the new politics might be encapsulated by the fact that I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and particularly on the 55% rule. Perhaps that is a sign of how we will go forward.
	I am a little worried by the debate today, because there has been no mention of what is supposed to be one of the coalition Government's fundamental propositions: the ideas that have been set out about the big society. The issues that have been discussed today-high-level constitutional reform, reform of the second Chamber, boundary changes, the right to look at alternative voting systems-will merit discussion, and I have no doubt that, in endless sittings in this Parliament, as has happened previously, we will go over that ground. I hope that we will resolve some of those issues in the next period. However, unless those high-level constitutional changes are underpinned by empowered citizens who really feel connected with their political system, we will end up talking to ourselves, and we have done that for far too long in previous Parliaments.
	I sought guidance from Mr Speaker about when I could raise issues to do with the big society. In five days of debate on the Queen's Speech, there has been no appropriate point at which those issues could be properly debated. That worries me enormously, because those issues are not easy to solve, but they should be permeating every Department, and they should become cross-departmental. I want to say a few words about how important it is to reconnect ordinary people with the political process at local and central Government level.
	The issues that will be important for us fall into three categories. In the time that I have this evening, I want to set out three big tests for the Government. If they are really serious about the big society and about how reconnecting people with politics is about establishing trust and establishing a new relationship between politicians and the people in this country, they will have to make that real, because otherwise the whole agenda will be rhetorical. It might be full of great slogans and great ideas, but unless there are three things in place, it will simply not work.
	The first test for the Government that I would like to set out is on funding. It is all very well to talk about involving people in decision making, or about having a new big society bank, as I think it is called, and community organisers active in every part of the country, but how much money will be in the big society bank, for instance? Nobody is telling us where the funds will be available. Why do the 5,000 new community organisers have to raise their own salaries and their own funding? We have genuine concerns, in that if the idea of connecting people to politics, sharing power, devolving power and involving citizens is to be made real, the funding has to be put in place. However, I am very sceptical indeed that the Government will prioritise the funding to enable that to happen in the current financial climate. I therefore seek some reassurance from the Government on that point.
	The second serious test is whether there is a proper framework for setting out the ideas around the big society. Are the Government going to say to local government in particular that it has a responsibility to devolve power to citizens and neighbourhood organisations, to people who want to take over assets and run services in their communities? That will be a big political test. Are the Government prepared to create not just a national framework, but a local framework that works?
	The third test concerns fairness. There is a massive gap between the capacity of people in better-off, more affluent areas and people in poorer areas to step forward and take positions of responsibility. I do not think for a moment that that disparity should be used in a patronising way-that it should be suggested that poorer people cannot do that-but our Government must give an absolute commitment to providing the capacity building, the funds, the support and the organisation that will enable people from those communities to take advantage of some of the devolutionary powers that will be created.
	The issues involved in those three tests-funding, a proper framework, and fairness-are the issues on which the Government's real commitment to devolution and involving people in their communities ought to be judged.
	I want to be a constructive critic on this agenda. It is something in which I have believed throughout the 30 years that I have been involved in politics, but I know from engagement in my own community that it is not easy. We cannot simply shout the slogans about community engagement and hope that people will step up to the plate. We must back them up. We must say that ours is a long-term commitment, and that we will not move the goalposts halfway through the process when people have given their own time, commitment and, in many instances, their own resources and money to make projects work in their communities.
	I think that this issue, just as much as the big, high-level constitutional issues, will be the test of whether we are really serious about new politics. New politics is about trust, but at the moment hundreds of thousands of people in the country feel utterly excluded from the political process. They do not know where the levers are, or what they should press to make things work. How can they ensure that the projects that are important to them come to fruition?
	We miss a huge opportunity if we simply talk to ourselves about how we will rearrange the constitution. The way in which we run our democracy is hugely important, but unless it is underpinned by people who are genuinely empowered and feel that they can make a difference, that the Government are taking them seriously, and that local government is prepared to support them with money and practical help so that they can turn their projects into reality, we shall break that trust.
	There is nothing worse than setting people up to fail. This whole area has been littered with the shattered dreams of people who have stepped forward and been prepared to put their families and communities on the line. They have not been given backing, and their projects have foundered. I do not want ever to see that happen again. We need a real commitment to building a big society in which citizens have more power and influence over things that matter to their lives. This will be an incredibly important test of the Government's commitment to ensuring that they really mean what they say-that it is not just words, slogans and rhetoric-and that they really mean to make a difference.

Jack Straw: I rise just to put on record that, yes, it was I who legislated for early counts wherever possible, but that that was on the basis of amendments that the hon. Lady had moved and it would not have happened without them. I entirely accept what she says about the lack of accountability of electoral registration officers and returning officers and the need for change, but does she accept that ring-fencing of the funding for electoral administration would inevitably go with that-that is a conclusion that I reluctantly came to-and that whatever other arguments there might be about ring-fencing, we have to see this as part of a national system?

Eleanor Laing: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, and it gives me great pleasure to be able to say for the first time in a long time what I actually personally think, because as a Back Bencher I am bound by no collective responsibility. I agree with him entirely. I personally believe that those funds will have to be ring-fenced and not simply put into the local government pot, because some local authorities, such as Epping Forest district council, handle these matters extremely well, whereas others do not do so quite so well. I therefore agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the funds will have to be ring-fenced, and also that that review of the electoral system must be undertaken as a matter of urgency.
	The issue of a fair electoral system is also important. There has been much talk this afternoon about the alternative vote or AV, but there is a far more glaring anomaly, because as the right hon. Gentleman addressed in his remarks-I think I mean my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, although that is also quite difficult to say-constituencies should, of course, be of the same size. Every vote cast in a general election should be of equal weight and value. Some Opposition Members talked about the size of certain constituencies in terms of square miles, yet we are elected to represent not pieces of land but people. What matters is the number of people in a constituency, not its geographical size. Every vote should be of equal value, but the argument over the alternative vote is a red herring-

Tristram Hunt: It is a great pleasure to be called in this important debate to make my maiden speech and to be the first to congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on his wonderful maiden speech, his description of the multicultural Mecca of Harrow and his generous comments about his predecessor, Tony McNulty, which many Labour Members share. Let me pay my tribute to my esteemed predecessor, Mark Fisher, who sat in the House for 27 years and conscientiously, effectively and passionately represented the interests of Stoke-on-Trent Central.
	Mark's connections to the Potteries began, improbably enough, when he was writing film scripts in Staffordshire Moorlands-an ambitious venture at the best of times in California, even more so in the Roaches of north Staffordshire. He then stood for Staffordshire Moorlands and was selected to succeed Bob Cant in Stoke-on-Trent-all the while as an old Etonian son of a Tory MP. People in the Potteries are, as I have discovered, enormously forgiving of one's past.
	Mark's maiden speech to the House in 1983 was a heartfelt lament at the state of the national health service in north Staffordshire owing to sustained underfunding. He spoke of old buildings, outdated operating theatres, waiting lists for general and orthopaedic surgery of more than 12 months. Now, after 13 years of good Labour Government, that decline has been reversed and Stoke-on-Trent has a brand new £370 million university teaching hospital, springing up around the old City General-it is the first new hospital for 130 years. In addition, we have new GP surgeries, walk-in centres and marked improvements in public health.
	Mark was also highly active in the House, working closely with Tony Wright on reforms to the workings of Parliament, the all-party parliamentary history group, which, in a different incarnation, I once had the pleasure to address and was mildly surprised at the intimate knowledge of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) of dialectical materialism and the life of Friedrich Engels.
	Mark also made a contribution to the management of the art collection in the palace. He was, indeed, an Arts Minister in 1997 and formed part of the heroic team in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that delivered a great Labour pledge of free entry to Britain's museums for the people of Britain. As his successor, I will be watching closely the incoming Administration's commitment to honour that pledge. It is now my great privilege to take up his place in Parliament.
	In an excellent maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) made an ambitious play for his city being the birthplace of the industrial revolution. While I am a deep admirer of the Derby silk mill and the Derby arboretum, and even the Derwent valley, we all know that the historic, earth-shattering event-the dawn of modernity, the dawn of industrialisation-began in my constituency with the opening of Josiah Wedgwood's factory in Etruria, near Shelton, in 1769. Since the 1770s, Stoke-on-Trent has become the premier global brand-name for ceramics.
	In a recent programme of his excellent series "A History of the World in 100 Objects", British Museum director Neil MacGregor described the fact that
	"human history is told and written in pots... more than in anything else."
	He went on to quote Robert Browning:
	"Time's wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure."
	At the heart of the English enlightenment, and indeed global civilization, Stoke-on-Trent makes its place in history, but out of the six towns has emerged more than just pottery-from the rise of primitive Methodism to the works of Arnold Bennett, from the football of Stanley Matthews to the lyricism of Robbie Williams and the social justice politics of Jack Ashley.
	The area has also faced profound challenges, and to be frank, globalisation has knocked the north Staffs economy sideways. Cheap labour in east Asia sparked a freefall in ceramics employment, the steel industry could not compete with China or India, and Michael Heseltine did for the last of our coal mines.
	This process of economic dislocation-when "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air"- has by no means ended, but there are signs of hope. A vibrant university quarter is springing up around Staffordshire university. Onshoring is seeing the return of ceramics jobs to Stoke-on-Trent, while a new generation of designer-makers, led by the likes of Emma Bridgewater, are creating high-value, high-design, locally rooted companies. The Portmeirion business, which produces the iconic Spode designs, is successfully growing from its Stoke base, exporting to Europe, America and South Korea.
	However, we have much to do in rebuilding our engineering supply chain, raising skills levels across the constituency and exploiting the human capital of Stoke-on-Trent. While we welcome the Government's commitment to rebalancing the British economy, perhaps the best way to do that is not to begin by cutting the regional development agency funds or the Building Schools for the Future programme.
	My seat is an old if not ancient one. It has a proud pedigree. Born of the Great Reform Act of 1832, of which the Deputy Prime Minister is now such a student, it was first represented in this place by Josiah Wedgwood, the son of the potter. Wedgwood was a liberal-in the proper sense of the word. Like his father, he was committed to the abolitionist cause and was a stalwart of the anti-slavery movement. It was a great pleasure to have seen that spirit reawaken in the general election this year as my constituents sent the racist, reactionary and frequently criminal British National party packing.
	However, Stoke-on-Trent also knows that change has to be matched with continuity, and my constituents share a deep apprehension over the Government's ill-thought-out plans for constitutional reform. They want to know that when a Government fail to win a vote of confidence, Parliament can be dissolved by 50% plus one vote, rather than the absurdity of the 55% self-protecting ordinance.
	Then we come to the five-year Parliament-again, a retrospective, constitutional fix to get this Government through some muddy waters, and that is before we get on to flooding of the House of Lords with new Members, redrawing the boundaries, leaving 3.2 million voters off the register and underfunding the individual registration scheme. However, my hon. Friends and I will come back to those issues in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I simply thank the House for the indulgence of this, my maiden speech, on the Gracious Speech.

Caroline Flint: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I have heard rumours of grandfather clauses, which is rather frightening. It suggests that whatever system we end up with, and whatever voting might take place in future for a second Chamber, those who are currently there could continue until they die. I have many friends in the other place, but this is not the right way to talk about what we are here to do in both Houses of Parliament.
	The second chamber that comes nearest to the House of Lords in size is the French Senate. This year it will have 346 members, half the size of the House of Lords. We know that the United States Senate has 104 members, and internationally the average size of a second chamber is 82. It is a matter not just of size, but of cost. We have heard that one of the reasons for reducing the number of seats in this place is cost. In 2007-08, the House of Lords cost £121.5 million, which works out at £168,000 per Member. If the House of Lords were reduced in size to, say, 100, it would save more than £115 million a year-much more than the savings projected by reductions in the size of the House of Commons by 10%, yet the coalition is planning on creating nearly 200 additional peers, at a cost of more than £20 million a year, while at the same time cutting the number of MPs.
	I object to the idea of reducing the Commons arbitrarily by 10% when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said from the Front Bench, the workload of MPs is growing, not decreasing. In addition, we have the proposal for a new super-majority of 55% of the Commons. What we see in the coalition's reform package is a manipulation of our democracy, not an extension of it. It is not new politics to pack the Lords and rig the Commons.
	The second topic that I shall touch on is the DNA database. The coalition proposal is to remove people not convicted of a crime from the DNA database. The database exists to provide justice for victims and their families. Having one's DNA profile held on the database is not a punishment. It is intended to assist in the prevention and detection of future crimes, to help eliminate the innocent from inquiries, and to deal with past crimes. So many cold cases have been solved because of the DNA database. Without the database, thousands of crimes would go unsolved and many serious and dangerous criminals would be walking our streets.
	Between March 1998 and March 2009, DNA evidence helped to solve over 304,000 crimes. In 2008-09, there were 252 homicides and 580 rapes with a DNA scene-subject match. In 2008-09, 79 rape, murder or manslaughter charges in England and Wales were matched to the DNA database from DNA profiles that belonged to individuals who had been arrested but not convicted of any crime. The only civil liberties being extended by the proposal from the coalition Government are those of rapists, murderers and other serious criminals to walk the streets for longer to commit crimes because a DNA record has been deleted.
	The evidence shows that there is a justification for retaining the DNA of people who have been arrested but not convicted, because their risk of offending, as measured by the risk of re-arrest, is higher than that of the general population. Analysis suggests that this risk is higher than that of the general population for six years following the arrest.
	We should also not forget the potential deterrent effect of DNA. People are less likely to commit crime if they know there is a good chance that they could get caught. So if people know that DNA could play a significant role in securing convictions, they will be less likely to commit the crime in the first place. I shall save my contribution on the proposal to give anonymity to defendants in rape trials for my Adjournment debate at the end of the evening.
	My final point is on police accountability. We all agree that there should be police accountability, and perhaps we need to look at police authorities and how they could be made more accountable. I am worried about the proposal to introduce elected police commissioners. We must recognise that some of the policing at force level and between forces concerns serious crimes involving organised criminals and organised networks. It is about counter-terrorism. Those are always the issues raised by my constituents on the doorstep. We need to make sure that in relation to accountability, we do not allow the work of the police to be distorted by what is most popular in our communities. I understand that there are other sorts of crime that have to be dealt with.
	We have Safer Neighbourhoods teams in Doncaster and elsewhere around the country because the Labour Government decided that local policing is important. The Conservatives opposed them when we introduced them. We now have local police teams dedicated to one particular area who will not be moved to another part of town and who spend their time out on patrol working with police community support officers and setting their priorities with local people. At the regular monthly meetings with the public, residents can demand action on gangs hanging around near an off-licence, on speeding cars or on motorbike nuisance. The mixture of local intelligence and public pressure provides real and practical accountability. What worries me about the hype surrounding elected police commissioners is that we will lose not only the plot on local accountability, but the commitment and funds to ensure that it continues to grow, not decline and wither on the vine. At the same time, we need effective policing to ensure that the public are protected from increasingly complicated crime.
	On all those issues, there are many questions that the coalition Government have to answer in the days, the weeks and, it would seem, the years ahead.

Angus Robertson: I start by commending the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) on his excellent and illuminating maiden speech. I am sure we will hear much more from him in the years ahead. I wish well both him and all those who either have already or are about to give their maiden speech.
	Since the formation of this Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, we have heard much in the press in Scotland about the fact that there is to be a "respect agenda", with the UK Government improving relations with the devolved Governments and the parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is thus with some regret that I noted the Deputy Prime Minister failing even to mention that agenda in his speech; he made an announcement of important constitutional progress on the reform of the House of Lords in respect of which he saw fit to invite Members from only three parties in this House.
	The shadow Secretary of State is not in his place, but I ask his colleagues to pass on to him the comments that I am about to make, because I have not been a blushing violet-or even a shrinking violet; I am now blushing, and not for the first time-when it comes to criticising the last Labour Government. During the last Parliament, there was much I needed to criticise the Labour Government on when it came to constitutional matters, but in recent times the previous Government worked hard on issues such as the reform of party and MP finance to include all the parties. Indeed, the then Justice Secretary was exemplary in his relations with the political parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is totally unacceptable that we are to see major constitutional reforms in the United Kingdom on the basis of excluding the parties of government from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I was pleased to note that other Members on the Opposition side, not least the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), recognised that as an important issue.
	Moving on to discuss the Queen's Speech, we understand that progress is to be made on further devolution of powers to Scotland. That would mean safer streets and safer communities, which is something that we welcome, as we also welcome the willingness to consider improving the financial powers to be devolved to the Scottish Government and to the Scottish Parliament. This comes at a time when we are hearing growing calls from academics and senior business leaders who want Scottish Ministers to control taxes and social welfare and to have borrowing powers.
	The Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility has been triggered in part by the new coalition Government's pledge to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. Among the leading members of the Scottish business community who are calling for fiscal responsibility in Scotland is Jim McColl, the chairman of business development firm, Clyde Blowers, which is involved in the campaign. He said recently:
	"I believe we're at the crossroads of a fantastic opportunity to take more responsibility in Scotland for its economic health... We need to have a financially responsible Parliament where politicians take full responsibility for raising the money that they spend and for the economy that they manage. We need the levers to stimulate that economy".
	That has been underlined by Ben Thomson, the chairman of the think-tank Reform Scotland, who said that there is "surprising" breadth of support for radical change, which was further underlined in  The Times today by Sir Tom Hunter, who writes:
	"Tinkering is not the answer to these challenges-Scotland must take a radical look at itself and change markedly. Scotland needs to control the levers necessary to stimulate growth-and benefit from the receipts that come from that growth."
	I very much hope that the coalition Government will take all these voices into account and follow their own advice on the respect agenda and on working constructively with the Scottish Government in pursuing these matters.
	In the time remaining, I would like to touch on a number of other constitutional reforms: fixed-term Parliaments, the 55% threshold, democratisation of the House of Lords and reform of the electoral system. We in the Scottish National party have long supported the introduction of fixed terms-experience of which, of course, we have in the Scottish Parliament. To illustrate and underline the point made by colleagues from the Democratic Unionist party earlier, it would be a real mistake to set the date of a fixed Parliament to match exactly the date of elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. If we are to have fixed terms, why not pick four-year rather than five-year cycles? Experience in the last Scottish Parliament election showed that the more elections one holds on the same day, the more problems can ensue.
	Turning to the so-called threshold question, we need only a simple majority to form or bring down a Government in the Scottish Parliament. If no Government can command 50% of support among voting MSPs within 28 days, Parliament is dissolved. The 66% barrier exists only to ensure that there is time to allow a new Government to be formed if an old one collapses. I really hope that the Government listen on this issue. For people who have practical experience of the system as it works in action, the 55% threshold is a gerrymandering effort to hold on to power, just as it is on the issue of boundary reviews, which seem to take no account of the geographic diversity in some parts of the United Kingdom. It is also hard to conclude anything but that this is an effort to target poorer and more rural constituencies. If there is a need to reform the size of constituencies, the Government must take account of manageable size and geography.
	On democratising the House of Lords, our party is in favour of a unicameral set-up, but should there be a second chamber, it must be elected. On electoral reform, if we are to have a referendum, we should include more than one option: the alternative vote is not proportional representation.
	In conclusion, we heard today from the Deputy Prime Minister in soaring reformist rhetorical tones what was in actual fact his falling at the first fence. Inclusion, debate and participation are all fine and well, but they need to include all-

John Thurso: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but I must not become involved in a discussion on the subject. I am looking at the clock, and thinking about House of Lords reform. I can usually bore for Britain about House of Lords reform for hours on end, but I see that I have only four minutes and 48 seconds left. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but perhaps we could discuss it on another occasion.
	I want to talk first about the "why" and then about the "how" of House of Lords reform. For me, reforming the House of Lords represents the linchpin of constitutional reform. Without a legitimate upper House, we do not have a legitimate Parliament. It is unacceptable for one half of our Parliament to debate, with quality, and reach a decision, and for that decision to be rejected by the other half, simply because it is not legitimate-and it is not legitimate because it is not elected.
	There are many countries in the world where appointment is regarded as legitimate, but in this country-given the way in which the media in particular, but also this place, have discussed the upper House-the other place can be considered legitimate only if it is either wholly or in very large part elected. When that happens, and it has legitimacy, it will become the true check and balance on this place that it ought to be.
	I am not the slightest bit worried about this House losing its primacy. A strong House of Lords, properly elected on, I suggest, a different model from this place-a fully proportionate model-and operating in the way in which it should, would complement Parliament. A strong upper House means a strong Parliament. I believe that much of which has happened in the past could have been avoided if Parliament had been strengthened to allow two functioning Houses to hold the Executive to account, each undertaking its separate functions.
	That brings me to the "how". First, we must consider the strengths of the House of Lords, of which there are many. The quality of debate is tremendous. The House has no instructions from the Chair, and Report stages and Third Readings proceed in a timeous manner. We could learn from those examples in this place. The quality of the scrutiny given to legislation, and of debates, is very high in the House of Lords, and the lack of a constituency link is essential: we cannot allow a competition with a Member of Parliament representing a constituency. It is traditional for peers to discuss their regions, but they do not become involved in constituency cases. I have long held the view that a House based on large regional constituencies, with one third elected at each election for a longish period with no re-election, would capture the majority of the benefits that currently exist in the upper House. It would become both a smaller and a stronger House.
	I want to say a little about what has been called "grandfathering". High principle and low politics are involved. The interesting thing about life peers is that they all go native. It seems that the hereditaries are the only ones who are happy to leave. Life peers are seduced by the glories of the place. I propose that they should all be allowed to stay there, and that we elect the first third, the second third and the third third. We will get there eventually. The grim reaper will take care of quite a lot of them, and I suspect that if-as I suggested on Second Reading of the Bill that became the House of Lords Act 1999 when I was in another place-we make it possible for them to retire, a great many noble Lords who have served for a long time and in an illustrious way will take that opportunity.
	There is also a high principle, however. The high principle is that much of what is good about the House of Lords, and is in its DNA, needs to be passed on. If the House of Lords as it is today were changed completely and became wholly elected, that would be lost. As I have said, there is low politics, but there is also that high principle.
	As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said at the outset, it is nearly 100 years since my party started this process off. Would it not be a fitting tribute if we celebrated the hundredth anniversary by completing it?

Gordon Marsden: Thus far, today's debate has been elegantly poised between rhetoric and reality. The reality we all face is the economic situation, which has been mentioned, and some Members-even among those of us who are not born-again cynics-might wonder whether some of the rhetoric coming from the coalition Government is intended to mask some of the reality of the pain they are currently proposing. I felt that somewhat when I heard the Deputy Prime Minister's speech, with its silken strangulation of the public sector: "I feel your pain."
	Let me turn, however, to some of the specific issues, especially voter registration, electoral reform and equal boundaries. We have heard in contributions from both sides of the House about the disadvantages of sweeping away all consideration of natural and constituency boundaries, and I very much welcome and admire the remarks of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) about getting the balance right, but we all draw on our own circumstances, and I want to say tonight that behind the rhetoric of individual registration and equal constituencies lies the reality of the existing situation in constituencies such as mine where there is under-registration. There has been talk about the need to have equalised constituencies, but not so much emphasis has been placed on equalised registration. In Blackpool and many other seaside towns, and many urban centres as well, the issue of transience and of areas of higher deprivation are key, too. If we are truly concerned about that process, we need to heed what the Electoral Commission has said about the matter. If we are truly concerned about connecting with people in a practical way in addressing voting reform, we ought to return to the issue of weekend voting, which has gone around this place like a miasma, although nobody has ever actually focused on it.
	Despite the elegant attempts of some Liberal Democrat Members to defend the indefensible, I must say that they have been sold a pup. They have been given a referendum on the alternative vote, which the Prime Minister and most of the Conservative party, and, sadly-I say that as a supporter of AV-a significant proportion of my party, will campaign against. Its prospects of getting through in a referendum are therefore relatively small. In return for this, there will be a gerrymandered system that will hit hardest at the Liberal Democrats. The Prime Minister gets the gain, and the Liberal Democrats get all the pain.
	There were two interesting quotations when the 55% agreement emerged-I think that is the best way to describe them. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), was a leading participant in the Liberal Democrat discussions that led to the creation of the coalition, and he said on Radio 4 on 14 May:
	"It was a small matter for us to say we accept"
	the Conservative party's "concerns" and agree to this. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who was serving on the Conservative team, had a different take, however. He said it was a "considered constitutional innovation". Clearly, he had not been in the same early-hours cabal as the Under-Secretary. It has been said that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills made his reputation by referring to the former Prime Minister as having gone from Stalin to Mr Bean. I say that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove went from Mr Bean to Stalin in an instant.
	Whether we have, for good or ill, an unwritten constitution, we have it, and custom, practice and precedent are weighty matters. In that constitution, prerogative issues and the fact that the House cannot bind itself because of parliamentary sovereignty to future things, the fact that the 55% figure would insulate the Executive against Parliament and the unease that the convention of dissolution would be eroded are all significant issues. That is why there has been a chorus of protest and concern in Parliament and outside.
	I shall quote a few examples. Peter Hennessy, a leading academic and constitutional expert, has said:
	"It looks as if you are priming the pitch, doctoring it a bit. Not good. It's meant to be a different politics, new politics."
	We have heard today of the reservations of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and the hon. Members for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), and there is a degree of sublime humbug about a Conservative leader who hammered away week after week in a general election campaign about the effect on markets of the uncertainty of a hung Parliament, but who now as Prime Minister blithely proposes to impose a system that, if it led to a lame-duck Government under the 55% rule, would create weeks of turmoil in the markets.
	The Scottish issue has already been discussed in that respect. There is a pattern here in respect of the Prime Minister, of course. He said on 14 May:
	"I'm the first Prime Minister in British history to give up the right...for a dissolution of Parliament...Others have talked about it, people have written pamphlets and made speeches...I have made that change."
	It is, however, very much the 21st-century equivalent of Louis XIV's "I am the state"-he is, of course, the monarch who was associated with the story of the emperor's new clothes. We should not take forward the innovation-on-the-hoof that this Prime Minister is proposing, and the naivety of the Deputy Prime Minister in that respect in talking about verdict first, trial afterwards, because he had not worked out the details in the debate today, is a telling observation for all of us.
	I do not have the time to talk about the broader issues, but they were touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). If we do not look at the broader issues of connecting with people, which would require reforming local government, bringing in the third sector and so forth, we will lose the plot. Substituting the coalition's rhetoric for the hard practice of what connecting with local people actually means is a big issue.

Mark Reckless: I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) and Members on both sides of the House on the excellent maiden speeches we have heard today.
	I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for recognising me for this maiden speech. It is, after all, five years since my predecessor, Bob Marshall-Andrews, took to the airwaves to concede defeat. Many Members may have heard him admit defeat on that occasion, but not all may have heard him make later what has variously been described as an Al Gore-style retraction or a Lazarus-like recovery.
	Bob Marshall-Andrews represented the constituents of Medway for 13 years, highly ably holding the Government to account throughout that period. During that time he faced a pincer attack from my campaign and from his Front Bench. On one occasion, the Labour Whips were so keen to assist my campaign that they leaked the fact that they had given him permission to undertake legal work in Hong Kong for several weeks while Parliament was sitting. Such things are always opaque, but I understand that it was in retaliation for Mr Marshall-Andrews having auctioned a series of Whips' letters to recalcitrant MPs, to raise money for the Campaign group.
	Bob Marshall-Andrews had a number of great successes. He defended the right to trial by jury-I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) took up that cause this evening-and he helped to prevent the extension of detention without trial. He played a major part locally in bringing the campuses of four universities to our constituency.
	The counstituency of Rochester and Strood is the successor to the Medway constituency. It contains two of the five Medway towns. Rochester, with its castle and cathedral, was and should again be a city. Strood, its proud neighbour over the River Medway, grew in the patriotic fervour of the Boer war, along with Chatham dockyard, and that is recorded in street names such as Gordon, Kitchener and Cecil.
	The constituency contains the historic dockyard of Chatham, which built and served our Navy from before the time of Pepys, to Nelson's HMS Victory, to the Falklands conflict. We are proud of that heritage, but we are also proud that, 25 years on, we have recovered from the closure of that dockyard.
	The constituency is two thirds urban, but also a third rural. We have the Hoo peninsula, between the Rivers Medway and Thames, which stretches from Grain to Cliffe, and where we saw off the threat of an airport twice the size of Heathrow. The constituency also contains the north downs villages of Cuxton and Halling.
	On the substance of the debate tonight, I should declare an interest: I am a member of the Kent police authority. However, on occasion, turkeys do vote for Christmas, and I should like to welcome the coalition's proposals to abolish police authorities and replace us with directly elected individuals. It must be right that those who exercise the coercive power of the state should be held to account by those whom they serve. That is a progressive cause. It is the cause for centuries of the parish constable against the remote magistracy. It is the cause of London Labour councils and the South Yorkshire police authority through the 1980s. It is the cause of the Levellers and, indeed, the Diggers, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton referred earlier. However, it is a cause today that is represented not by the Opposition, but by the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), who represents not just Burford, but democratic ideals of the Levellers who lost their lives there.
	I have heard the odd senior police officer oppose those plans, yet there is no suggestion of any intrusion on the chief constable's prerogative. The powers that will be transferred are currently those of police authorities. Surely, the objection is not merely that directly elected individuals will exercise those powers more effectively than police authorities have done to date.
	We will also codify operational independence. I would caution that that does not mean that the police should be allowed to get along with things solely as they wish. The Metropolitan police have a tradition of independence because we have had a concern to guard against them becoming the arm of central Government. However, our tripartite system is a compromise between counties, where chief constables would occasionally receive instructions, and boroughs, where oversight was much greater. Indeed, the watch committee of the borough of Preston met twice a day-once in the morning, to give the chief constable his instructions, and once in the early evening, to check that he had carried them out.
	Before I close, I should like to draw the House's attention to what I consider the major trend in policing of the past 25 years. It is the movement of power from locally appointed and accountable chief constables to an organisation that is both a private company and a trade union with a closed shop: the Association of Chief Police Officers, which has grown to dominate the field of policing without the sanction of the House. It has its committees and its cabinet, and it issues instructions to us in Kent on how much we should charge for policing the Faversham carnival or the Maidstone water festival. It is right that we should now move and have directly elected police commissioners to rebalance the policing landscape and restore local democracy.

Mark Lazarowicz: I congratulate the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) on his fine maiden speech. The practical experience that he obviously has on police authorities will stand him in good stead in debates in the House on such matters, even though we may not agree on the contents of what he says. As for his generous tributes to his predecessor, I am sure that the Labour Whips will hope that he is as loyal to the new Government as his predecessor was to the Labour Government.
	I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) for her fine speech. She also paid a very generous tribute to her predecessor, John McFall. John McFall is certainly a hard act to follow, but I have no doubt that she has the talent and expertise to be a worthy successor to him. She will shine in the House, although the nice things that I had written down about her speech came to a stop when she reached the part about Glasgow being the finest city in the world. Glasgow is a fine place, but that is going a little too far. I am sure that she will do well, and I wish her well in her parliamentary career.
	I want to say a few things about the issue of the 55% threshold for Dissolution of the House of Commons, which is being proposed by the Government coalition. I do not think that I am the only Member, and not only on this side of the House, who is disappointed at the way that the Deputy Prime Minister-the first Liberal leader since Lloyd George to speak at the Dispatch Box from the Treasury Bench-performed in the Chamber today. I found his refusal to enter into any real debate and answer questions very disappointing. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said from the other side of the Chamber, the proposal for a minimum threshold is a major constitutional change, and it was not even in either of the Government parties' manifestos, so it is quite reasonable to ask questions about the proposal, how it would work and what it would mean in practice. It is not good enough to say, "It is just a few details that we will sort out later."
	The Deputy Leader of the House was taken by surprise, or ambushed, in an Adjournment debate last week. He could be forgiven for not having all the answers, but by now I would have hoped that the Government had answers to the questions that they were asked. I hope that we see better from the Deputy Prime Minister in future.
	Given that the Deputy Prime Minister would not answer many of the questions that were put to him today, I hope that the Home Secretary, who is always courteous, tries to address in the winding-up speech some of the issues that the Deputy Prime Minister unfortunately failed to address. I congratulate her junior Ministers on their promotion to the Treasury Bench and hope that they will have a word with her about that before the end of the debate.
	Those issues are simple and straightforward. First, do the Government accept that if a Government lose a vote of confidence on a simple majority and no alternative majority is formed within a reasonable time, Parliament will then be dissolved and there will be general election? If they say yes and make it clear that that is their position, they will deal with many of the objections held by Members on the Opposition Benches.  [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House chunters away from a sedentary position, but the fact is that we have not been given clear answers to these questions. If the Government give clear answers, they will allow the debate to move much further forward.
	Secondly, we have to challenge the assertion being made by the Government parties that their proposal for a 55% threshold gives away the Government's right to call a general election. A 55% threshold does not give away the Government's right to call an election. As has been pointed out time and again, the Government parties have 57% of the seats-a majority-so nothing has changed. There is no move to a fixed-term Parliament in the measures being proposed, from what we can understand about what they are meant to provide.
	If those on the Government side of the House really want to give up the right to be able to call a general election at a time that suits the Government parties, perhaps we should go for a higher threshold for a Government motion to dissolve Parliament. Let us go for the Scottish higher proportion, as some people have suggested. That might be a fair combination: a higher threshold for the Government to be able to move Dissolution, but keeping the right of a simple majority in Parliament to throw the Government out if they no longer have the support of the House. That is the kind of debate-the kind of proposal and the kind of compromise-that we ought to have over time. It is the kind of debate in which we might get a fair degree of consensus across the House.
	One lesson of the Scottish example is not simply the numbers-the threshold-required to dissolve the Scottish Parliament, but the approach to politics involved. The Scottish Parliament's arrangements for dissolution and for no-confidence votes have stood the test of time because they were not suddenly announced at the last minute, after an election. Originally, we were told that there would be a binding vote of the House of Commons on the proposals within days of the Government taking office. That idea at least appears to have been dropped. The Scottish Parliament proposals had such broad support because they were discussed over time, and not just in this House. There were weeks, months and years of discussion in the wider political community in Scotland as well. I suggest that that is a lesson that the Government should learn from the Scottish experience.
	As the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) pointed out, this is not only a question of getting measures through this place; they have to get through the House of Lords as well. No matter how many former Liberal Democrat councillors, retired Tory MPs or whatever the Government try to stuff into the House of Lords, I predict that, once they are there, they will become attached to the place along the corridor.
	If the Government really want to move forward on fundamental constitutional reform, the way to do it is to try to get as much consensus as possible across the Chamber of the House of Commons. If that happens, there will not be the same opportunity for those in the House of Lords who want to stop change to do so.
	Let us try to move forward with consensus. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister's performance today was an aberration caused by his excitement at being the first Liberal leader since Lloyd George to sit on the Treasury Bench. Perhaps some of the wiser heads in the Lib Dem and Conservative parties will advise him to think differently and to approach the issues differently in future.
	I am sure that we can get consensus in the House on most of those issues. Let us try to move forward on that basis, rather than force division where no division need exist.

Stephen Lloyd: I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech this evening. It has been a privilege to listen to so many of my colleagues making their maiden speeches. I mention particularly the previous three speeches-from the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who has deep boots to fill as the successor to Bob Marshall-Andrews; the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle); and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), with whose comments about House of Lords reform I find myself agreeing strongly.
	There has been much talk over the years about how statistics can be manipulated to suit the wishes of the Government of the day. I am confident that in this era of new politics, as described so elegantly by my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, such statistical innovation will not be a feature of the coalition Government-a Government of whom I am a little startled to find myself a Member.
	I mention the fact of statistics or, to put it another way, results shifting with the tide, as when I had the honour of being elected at 3.30 am on 7 May by the good voters of Eastbourne and Willingdon I had already been through a 45-minute process where I had been told that I had lost. It appears that both my and my opponent's counting agents had made the same mistake. Better to have thought I had lost only to find out that I had won, one might say-certainly better than when I fought the previous general election in Eastbourne in 2005, where for a similar period of 45 minutes, I was told that I had won, until suddenly another box of ballot papers was discovered, and I had lost. Members will appreciate, I am sure, that I now believe something only after a certain amount of time has elapsed, to allow for any variables. In my case, 45 minutes appears to be the cut-off.
	Nevertheless, it is a profound honour to have been elected as the MP for Eastbourne. I am the third Liberal or Liberal Democrat to have represented such a wonderful constituency. The others were my colleague Mr Bellotti, who was elected in the by-election in 1990, and, apparently, another Liberal MP from over 100 years ago. I believe we were in government at the time, so it is a particular pleasure to be in that position again, though I note that it was rather upsetting for the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). I fervently hope that we do not have to wait another 100 years before we are next in government, though I suspect that some hon. Members present may earnestly desire that.
	I would like to make reference to the contribution of two of my other predecessors, Mr Nigel Waterson and the right hon. Ian Gow. Mr Waterson had the privilege of representing Eastbourne for 18 years and I am sure many of his colleagues in the House will join me in wishing him well for the future. I am aware that the tradition in the House is to speak only good of our predecessor, and that is how it should be. However, the recent general election in Eastbourne was a bruising campaign for all concerned, and at the time and since I promised my constituents that, come what may, were I elected I would remain truthful to them, whatever the criteria.
	As my constituents know, there was not a great deal of love lost between Mr Waterson and myself, and it would be absurd and dishonest for me to pretend otherwise, but I would like to pay a fulsome tribute to him on two specific issues. First, Mr Waterson played a key leading role in the town's cross-party campaign to stop the closure of maternity services at the Eastbourne district and general hospital. His commitment and dedication to that cause played no small part in its eventual success. I, Eastbourne and the surrounding area thank him for that.
	Secondly, let me provide a little context. Having spent over 20 years in business before coming into politics, I had to learn pretty quickly just how brutal a business our profession can be. It seems to be the nature of the beast. In a way, democratic politics across the world is the closest that protagonists come to war without actually killing each other. It is rather odd, but I am sure many more learned scholars than me have posited that, with a system in which there can be only one winner and the stakes are so great, tempers become frayed. As I am sure many Members know from experience, public meetings can become very heated. On those occasions when Mr Waterson was in the firing line, I observed that he was a brave man. He did not crumble or give in, and for that I respect his courage.
	I should like to turn to the right hon. Ian Gow. I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr Gow, but I am aware that there remain a number of Members who knew him well. I should like to tell them and the House that he is still remembered with tremendous affection by the voters of Eastbourne and Willingdon, across all party persuasions. He will be my role model of a good constituency MP.
	I should also hope that in some small way my election helps to close the circle since the IRA's appalling and disgraceful act of assassinating Mr Gow all those years ago. I am half Northern Irish, and like many from that island my family was affected by the troubles. One of my uncles was a senior police officer who survived an assassination attempt by the IRA, while other members of my family were more supportive of the nationalist cause, and still other members were supportive of the Liberal Democrats' sister party in Northern Ireland, the Alliance party.
	Therefore, I know more than most how far Northern Ireland has come over the past 15 years, and for that I pay a sincere and heartfelt tribute to all the political parties in Northern Ireland which have moved so far, and to both the Conservative and, more recently, Labour Governments for enabling the peace process, proving, perhaps, what I said earlier: for all its Sturm und Drang, democratic politics, red in tooth and claw, really is the only sane alternative. Otherwise, as we saw in Northern Ireland during the troubles and still see throughout the world, bloodshed ensues and people-innocent people-lose their lives. Consequently, to represent the same constituency that the right hon. Ian Gow died serving is an honour, and I assure the House that his memory and legacy live on in Eastbourne.
	Talking of Eastbourne, I shall give Members a little history. Many in the House will know that it is a splendid town with a fine sea front, wonderful architecture and flanked by the stunning South Downs. Some Members, however, may not know that George Orwell was reputed to have written "Animal Farm" in Eastbourne. Indeed, Friedrich Engels lived for a time in the town and, allegedly, even received the odd holiday visit from Karl Marx. Not perhaps what we would expect-

Siobhain McDonagh: I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on his maiden speech and hope that he enjoys his time in the House.
	It is my first opportunity to make a contribution since the election, and I am pleased to see so many new faces, particularly so many new women Members of Parliament, and so many new young women MPs. I hope that they, too, enjoy their time in the House and change it for the better.
	The election was fascinating in many ways. The pundits have been divided about how we ended up with the result. However, one thing I know-the election was not a referendum on scrapping identity cards or restricting the use of CCTV or DNA. We all know in our hearts, if not in our speeches that the public did not endorse any party to carry out those policies.
	For many years, my constituents have been telling me that their priorities are protecting their communities, and not protecting those who commit crimes and antisocial behaviour, or those who abuse benefits and immigration systems. A few years ago, I invited my constituents to Parliament to tell me how they wanted the Home Office to help in their community. I held two packed meetings in Committee Room 14-the biggest Committee room in Parliament. It was full to overflowing. My constituents believed almost universally that, in helping tackle crime, making antisocial behaviour more difficult and clamping down on immigration abuses and benefit fraud, ID cards would give them more freedom, not take it away. Out of more than 400 people, more than 90% agreed.
	In the recent election campaign, people continued to tell me that ID cards, CCTV and DNA could make a difference. They will not necessarily prevent all the bad things that happen, but my constituents believe that they will protect their rights and make life harder for those who would abuse their privileges. If the Government scrap ID cards or the next generation of more secure biometric passports, we are not clear how they would ensure the security of our borders, prevent illegal working or make it harder to defraud the benefit system.
	I have spoken about ID cards many times in the House, and many constituents have come to me because their identities have been stolen. Sometimes that has meant their being wrongly fined for the congestion charge, getting the wrong bills and, in more serious cases, being removed from packed planes because somebody had used their name and committed a crime. There was also the devastated family who watched the drugs squad come through their front door because the police were unaware of the identity of the people next door.
	There are many simpler cases. The national identity register and biometric passports are essential to ensure the integrity of people's identity. Many people have already obtained ID cards because they are prepared to pay for that protection and want to be able to prove their age in pubs and travel freely around Europe. They are angry that the Government will not support them.
	Nobody has ever come to my advice surgery asking for CCTV to be taken away. I suggest that nobody will ever come to other hon. Members' surgeries with such a request. People come to see us because they want more, not less CCTV. People in Gilpin close, Mitcham thought that the only way to resolve the problems of antisocial behaviour, and young people vandalising cars, taking drugs and threatening other residents, was through introducing CCTV. Thanks to the Labour Government and the hard work of their councillors, the people of Gilpin close now have that CCTV. Nationally, we heard in the past few days that the main suspect in the Bradford murder case was arrested after a caretaker found CCTV footage of one of the victims.
	The same argument applies to DNA. Would a woman walking home late at night feel safer knowing that a criminal had their freedom because DNA evidence could not be used to convict them? I do not think so. The DNA database provides the police with more than 3,000 matches each month, and my constituents do not want to lose that tool in the fight against violent crime, burglaries and rape.
	One of the most notorious crimes in my part of south London in recent years was solved when the killer of poor Sally Anne Bowman, Mark Dixie, was found guilty as a result of DNA evidence. If the Government have their way, DNA profiles will be retained only for those arrested for a serious offence, and for only three years unless a further court extension is granted. My constituents are worried that they will make it harder to catch the Mark Dixies of the future.
	I take the use of ID cards, CCTV and DNA seriously, and my constituents share that view. I find it hard to believe that a new Government, with such a broad church, could come up with the Identity Documents Bill. They do not really have an identity of their own, so how can they protect anybody else's?
	I also find it hard to comprehend how plans to make it more difficult to use CCTV or DNA evidence could appear in something called a "freedom" Bill. To whose freedom does that refer? We read in the broadsheets and hear grand speeches about individuals, but may I suggest that the freedom of the many-of the community-is based in DNA retention and the use of CCTV, and a Government who are prepared to stand up for ordinary people?
	It might be good to make great, eloquent speeches about the individual and their inalienable rights, but it is the right of an elderly lady to have the freedom to live in her own home without people sitting on her front gate and throwing stuff at her windows; the right of a woman to use the tube late at night and walk back to her home; and the right of young black men, who are the main victims of crime, to walk freely in our town centres without fear. CCTV, the DNA database and ID cards would make a strong, positive contribution to allowing those people, who are not necessarily represented in the House, their freedom.

Alan Johnson: I hope the House will appreciate my being unable to respond to the contributions of all the old retreads, so to speak, as I want to concentrate on the remarkable standard of debate from those making their maiden speeches, and as there were 22 of them by my count, I shall have to go through them very quickly.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman) spoke movingly about the tragic case of Peter Chapman and the lessons to learn from it. The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) was generous and gracious in her comments about her predecessor, Lynda Waltho, and spoke about the importance of the glass industry to her constituency. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) spoke about his predecessor, Tony McNulty, who as a former police Minister will, I guarantee, have been watching this debate on television all afternoon. The hon. Gentleman described him as having been diligent in his work on behalf of his constituency. He also mentioned the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital. As the Minister who approved the extra funding for the rebuild of that hospital, I too hope it goes through under this Government.
	Having read the books of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), it was a delight to listen to his contribution, and I am sure we will listen to many more for many years to come. He spoke about there being the first new hospital in his constituency for 120 years, and gave a eulogy to the six towns. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) spoke about the contribution his predecessor, Ian Taylor, made to science and technology, and spoke well too about his aspirational constituency, but pointed out that there are pockets of deprivation there as well. The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) spoke about the devastating effects of the closure of the steelworks there and mentioned his predecessor, Vera Baird, whom I guarantee is already campaigning vociferously against the Government's proposals on anonymity for rape defendants.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) had the distinction of being the very first Member to be elected to this Parliament. She managed it on 6 May. By and large, the rest of us followed on 7 May, and some even later. She spoke of her first-hand experience of working with the victims of sexual violence, once again putting that in the context of her opposition to the proposals on anonymity for rape defendants. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) mentioned her many illustrious predecessors and demonstrated what a suitable successor she will be. She was also the only Member to mention domestic violence, which is an important issue in any home affairs debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) managed to mention all three of her local newspapers, thus guaranteeing coverage, a good trick for those yet to make their maiden speeches. She also mentioned her predecessor, Anne Moffatt, who was my Parliamentary Private Secretary both at the Department of Health and the Home Office and whom we all wish well for a speedy recovery following her serious illness.
	The hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) spoke about his constituency's worrying predilection for reselection, and showed why we all expect him to escape that particular curse. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) delivered an excellent maiden speech after six years as the candidate; spending a long time waiting might, perhaps, be a good recipe for making such speeches, therefore.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) is a formidable campaigner whom I know very well. She is the first woman to be elected to represent Glasgow East and is already displaying the benefits that she will bring to her constituents. I should also note that she made one further constitutional change by referring to you, Mr Speaker, as the presiding officer and to your deputies as the deputy presiding officers. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) was the only Member until my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) to mention immigration, which he quite rightly said was one of the biggest issues on the doorstep during the general election.
	My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) rightly mentioned Adam Ingram's contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) spoke about the need to retain vibrant rural communities and the importance of housing to that objective. He did much for Victim Support before he came to this House, and I am sure he will do even more as a new Member of it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), in a funny speech, spoke about her pride at representing the constituency in which she was born and raised. She also mentioned the importance of the co-operative movement, which she will see has been grasped by the Government-at least for the time being. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) gave us an insight into the dark world of the Government Whips when he spoke about his predecessor, and he made an elegant argument on the importance of elected police commissioners-every word of which I disagreed with.
	The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) had the unique experience of being told he had won when he had lost and lost when he had won. I think the Whips may avoid him as a teller on any future vote we have. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) spoke impressively about how constitutional issues can be of immense importance to the more prosaic, day-to-day issues that affect our constituents. The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) spoke of the beauty of his constituency and of the work of Richard Spring, which many of us in this House admired, despite his obvious failure to secure a bypass for Brandon.
	The Member for Tory- [Interruption.] I meant the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg); I do like to remind myself which party they are from. He made a particularly entertaining speech. It was a little anti-Danish, but on the form he was on tonight, he will avoid having ox bones thrown at him during his time in this House.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) need not have worried-he maintained that very high standard to the last. He spoke about his sympathy for his family and friends, who have been here since 2.30 pm. I very much sympathise with that-I know how they feel. Given that he gave away the ending of the latest Harry Potter film, I think the Hansard people are having their arms stretched up their backs to make sure it is not in tomorrow's  Hansard.
	For the benefit of the Deputy Prime Minister, I will mention just three of the contributions from retreads. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. Members for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) made perhaps three of the most eloquent speeches against the proposed 55% rule. Government Members ought to listen to that argument. I was also pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister made his maiden speech at the Dispatch Box. We were very interested to hear that he has given Her Majesty's Government's support to a yes vote in the Welsh referendum on further devolution in Wales. I think we all took that as being a step forward.

Alan Johnson: I am not sure whether that can be recorded as a slip of the tongue; I think that the right hon. Gentleman has made the first U-turn. I believe he also thought that the basic state pension was £33 a week-that was probably a basic slip of the tongue too. This is not a good start for the Deputy Prime Minister, because Labour Members were behind him in his stated preference for the Government to support a referendum on devolving power in Wales. We shall see what happens, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was right in what he said.
	I welcome the Home Secretary to the Dispatch Box. Labour Members like to think that we smoothed her path to this position as Home Secretary by helping to remove the former shadow Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), before he could do any significant damage. Among his many gaffes was a propensity to be disingenuous about crime statistics, which led to his having his knuckles severely rapped by the UK Statistics Authority. He is now in the political equivalent of a Siberian salt mine, locked away somewhere in the Department for Work and Pensions and condemned to work with a Lib Dem, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), about whom the Deputy Prime Minister once said the following-this may also have been a slip of the tongue:
	"Webb must go...He's a problem. I can't stand the man. We need a new spokesman. We have to move him. But...As a backbencher, he'd be a pain in the".
	A word beginning with "a" follows, but if I said it, Mr Speaker, you would be off yours to call me to order. It seems to me that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister managed to sort out both their little problems at the expense of the DWP.
	I am confident that the new Home Secretary will not repeat the mistakes of her predecessor as shadow Home Secretary and that she will confirm, in her reply, that crime has reduced substantially since her party left office in 1997. On violent crime, she will be able to correct the mistake made on page 55 of the Conservative manifesto, which said that
	"violent crime...has risen sharply under Labour".
	It should, of course, have said "reduced" instead of "risen". There are three measures of violent crime: the British crime survey's figures, which show a decline of 41%; the recorded crime figures, which, since the 2003 changes in the formulation, have shown a 13% reduction; and the figures from accident and emergency departments collated by Cardiff university, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) drew attention, that show a reduction of 15% since they commenced in 2001. The murder rate is at its lowest for 20 years and the murder rate in London is at its lowest since 1978. No incoming Home Secretary in living memory has inherited such a consistent fall in crime and no incoming Government could have done more to undermine that position in their first few weeks.
	On 19 May, in her speech to the Police Federation, the Home Secretary said
	"make no mistake: I will be tough on crime."
	But she could give no commitment to retain the record number of police and police community support officers who are vital to that objective. How is it that under this Conservative-led Government the funding for international development can be guaranteed but the funding for fighting crime cannot? Labour would have protected them both. Do her Government consider international development a greater priority? How is it that while front-line services in health and education can be safeguarded, police numbers cannot? Will she stand up for her Department against such warped priorities? When will she ensure that, similar to what happens in health and education, the savings made within constabularies are reinvested in front-line policing? How will she be tough on crime while restricting the police's ability to catch criminals?
	The Government talk of adopting the safeguards of the Scottish system in respect of DNA retention, but they do not explain whether those are safeguards for the victims or the perpetrators of crime. The Scottish system retains the DNA of those arrested but not convicted, but only if they are arrested for a serious crime. That would be logical only if there was evidence to suggest that it was people in that category who had a higher propensity to be re-arrested, but the best available evidence indicates that the type of offence a person is first arrested for is not an indicator of the seriousness of the offence he or she might subsequently be arrested or convicted for in future.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) have made these points, but let me remind the House that, each year, in about 800 cases of rape, murder and manslaughter, DNA is central to police inquiries. In about 10% of those cases, matches are made to people who have been arrested but not convicted, of which a quarter involve people who have been arrested but not convicted of non-serious offences. That is one reason why in 2008-09, the England and Wales DNA database had a 13% higher success rate than Scotland's.
	On the period of retention, there is no evidence to support the Scottish period of three years, which was plucked from the air. The best evidence available shows that the so-called hazard curve-the propensity for those who have been arrested but not convicted to be re-arrested-remains higher than that for the rest of the population for six years following first arrest. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in the debate last week, the Government should
	"give the benefit of the doubt to the victim."-[ Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 43.]
	The retention period of six years should remain in force until 2012, when we will have, for the first time, six years' worth of statistics upon which to make a further judgment. Why pull that information off the DNA database and then find in 2012 that we should have kept it?
	The Home Secretary intends to be tough on crime while failing to protect police numbers and restricting their ability to catch criminals, and she intends to do that while embroiling them in the operational upheaval of having elected commissioners. Aside from the fact that that will lead to years of internal turmoil and cost about £50 million for each police authority area, that idea's time has gone. The debate on accountability has moved on. It is now focused on making neighbourhood police teams answerable to the public they serve, on doing more to ensure that police authorities have a higher profile and more expertise, and, crucially, on enhancing and increasing the role and responsibilities of local government. Notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), local authority leaders from all three main parties oppose this measure, as do the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Police Federation. I have yet to meet a single police officer or local councillor who supports it. The measure is, as ACPO says, driven purely by dogma, and I urge the Home Secretary to think again before taking it further.
	In the time available to me, I cannot deal with every issue that has been raised, but I should like to make a final point. We will discuss identity cards on Wednesday on Second Reading of the Identity Documents Bill, but the Deputy Prime Minister has, in a hyperbolic speech that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has already pointed out was historically inaccurate, promised the end of the "culture of spying" on British citizens, praying in aid ID cards, the national identity register and CCTV.
	We are told that CCTV is part of the evil infringement of our rights and that it must therefore be "properly regulated", to use the Deputy Prime Minister's words. Will the Home Secretary tell us what that means, and will she say if she has ever been approached by a constituent who wants fewer CCTV cameras? That is important, because, apparently, as part of the big society, which is what most of us thought we would get if we failed to tackle obesity, the Deputy Prime Minister promises to ask the public which laws to repeal. We stand on the side of the Home Secretary's constituents. An article in the Maidenhead Advertiser, entitled, "CCTV will help stop crime in Furze Platt", which is in her constituency, says:
	"Almost every resident of Bridle Road, Bridle Close and Calder Close has signed a petition asking the council to put"
	CCTV cameras in "as a deterrent." We are on the side of Furze Platt. Indeed, the term could be used as cockney rhyming slang, as in, the Deputy Prime Minister must be a right Furze Platt if he thinks people want fewer CCTV cameras.
	The Conservative-led Administration will either recognise the need for control orders, second-generation biometric passports, the detention of families and the DNA database, or they will endanger our national security, weaken our controls on immigration, reduce our ability to return failed asylum seekers and restrict the police's ability to catch dangerous criminals. The Gracious Speech gave no indication that they recognise those basic facts.

Theresa May: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity to respond to that point. As he has just said, the decision is up for renewal towards the end of July. No decision has been taken at the moment, but I can assure him that Parliament will be informed of any decision that is taken. That question partly leads on to the freedom Bill. Protecting the country from terrorist attacks is, of course, of primary concern, but striking the right balance between safety and liberty is something that the previous Administration got horribly wrong. We have seen a significant erosion in individual freedoms, and power has been diverted from the citizen to the state. That is why we are legislating to roll back the state, to reduce the amount of Government interference and repeal unnecessary laws, but our commitment to protecting the public will not be compromised. The freedom Bill will help us to balance an individual's right to privacy and liberty against the collective safety and security of the entire country.
	At the heart of our reforms is the desire to build a stronger society with responsibility and fairness at its heart. We will enable people to take back responsibility for themselves and their families. We are determined to value the British people, to invite them into the debate and to listen to them-something that was sorely lacking under the previous Administration. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) talked of linking the Government and the people-a worthy aim indeed, but it is a pity that the last Labour Government did not do that. For 13 years, they took powers to the centre and away from people and communities.

David Heath: I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
	Motion 4 will provide for the Chair of the Committee to be elected from among the Labour Members of the House in accordance with the distribution of Select Committee Chairs that you indicated at the beginning of the Parliament, Mr Speaker. Motions 5 and 6 will provide for the Chair of the Select Committee to be paid.
	The Government have committed to establishment the Committee as quickly as possible and with cross-party support, to ensure that the House is able to scrutinise the work of the Deputy Prime Minister. I stress that that scrutiny will be in addition to the Deputy Prime Minister's regular questions sessions in this house. It is our intention, if the House so agrees, that the election of the Chair of the Committee will take place on Wednesday, alongside the election of all other Chairs of Select Committees, to ensure that the Committee can start work as soon as possible.
	I do not wish to anticipate the debate or any individual Member's contribution, but I shall pick up one point in advance. I think that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) suggested that a joint Committee of both Houses might be set up. Perhaps it will be helpful if I say from the outset that the Government do not believe that a joint Committee is the right way forward. First, no other Minister would be scrutinised by a Committee of both Houses. Secondly, the House of Lords Constitution Committee will continue, as its remit states, to
	"examine the constitutional implication of all public Bills coming before the House; and to keep under review the operation of the constitution."
	I will be interested to hear Members' comments, to which I shall respond. However, that is sufficient at this stage to introduce the motions.

Fiona Mactaggart: I welcome the formation of this Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I rise to speak because, in common with other Members, I was disconcerted by the Deputy Prime Minister's speech today, in which he announced the formation of another constitutional Committee, which is not being created as a Committee of this House and is not going through this careful and laborious process. When the Deputy Prime Minister announced the membership thereof, he excluded all the Members of the smaller Opposition parties. I thought that that was, frankly, a disgrace. That initiative to prepare legislation for reform of the second Chamber was really disappointing.
	The present proposal, which provides an opportunity for the House properly to scrutinise the other constitutional reforms offered by the current Government, risks, I think, a combination of cynicism from the Conservatives and over-optimism from the Liberal Democrats who have coalesced with them. It is important that constitutional change wins the trust not just of the whole House, but of the citizens whom we have the privilege to represent. It is very important that this Committee gets the same level of respect and power as all the other Select Committees of the House so that it can look at House of Lords reform as much as at the other issues with which it is concerned. I hope to hear from the Deputy Leader of the House that that will be case and that the bounced-forward Committee that was announced earlier today will not in any way take powers away from the Select Committee that we are debating tonight.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman wished me to answer his points before I had dealt with those of other hon. Members, and I am sorry that he had to be a little patient in that respect. He said that decisions have been taken, but Parliament takes decisions on legislation. Perhaps the key difference between this Administration and the previous one is that we want Parliament to take these decisions. It is for the Government to propose and for this House to dispose of those propositions. Therefore, it is not wrong in any way for the Government to be committed to a programme of government that is placed before this House for consideration. Both my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that this House has the proper opportunities to have its say. That is the difference between how we do business and how the previous Government did it. I am unable to deal with the hon. Gentleman's point about the Wright Committee, because that would be completely outside the terms of this motion. However, he will find that his questions on implementing the Wright Committee recommendations will be answered in the very near future.
	Let me deal briefly with the other points raised, one of which related to costs. We know that it costs money to have Select Committees, but it is equally important that this House has the opportunity to scrutinise the decisions of every Minister of this House. Thus, this is a cost that we have to bear, but I must say to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that we have abolished a whole tier of Select Committees in the form of the Regional Select Committees, which were an unnecessary and expensive farce. We have got rid of them, so we have a little money in the bank, as it were, in terms of the cost of scrutiny.
	I was asked whether the membership of this Committee would be appointed. No, it will be elected, like that of every other Select Committee; this is a perfectly normal Select Committee of the House.

David Heath: It is an intriguing argument that however many Select Committees there were operated and could travel around the country at no cost to the House at all. That is an interesting argument, but not one for today, perhaps.
	I was asked why the chairmanship of this Committee is to be Labour, and it was suggested that perhaps the wording should be "the official Opposition". This was a decision of the House, and it decided that the Speaker should allocate the Chairs of the various Select Committees according to the proportion of Members in the House elected from each party. It was the Speaker's decision-based, I am sure, on excellent mathematical principles-that this chairmanship should be allocated to the Labour party. Unless the House decides otherwise, it is not the Government's position that the decision that the House has already taken should be changed.
	On the time interval for nominations, that is for the convenience of the House. If the House does not like it, it is at liberty to say that it wants the full period for nominations, but I think that most want the Select Committees up and running at the earliest opportunity. They want to make sure that people have the opportunity to vote for the Chairs of all the Select Committees at the same time. They want to make sure that the best people, and not people who have been rejected for other chairmanships, put themselves forward for the Chairs in which they are most interested. I think that is the right way of doing things, but it is for the House to decide.
	I think I have dealt with all the points that have been raised.

Caroline Flint: I am grateful for the opportunity this evening to question the Government's proposals to give anonymity to defendants in rape trials.
	I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) to his new position. He is a reasonable man and I know he realises that this issue has caused much concern to many Members. I am grateful to my hon. Friends who have stayed in the Chamber this evening and I am also grateful to Members on the Government Benches. I hope the hon. Gentleman will hear the points that are made tonight.
	Rape devastates women's lives. Every 34 minutes a rape is reported to the police in the UK. Many more go unreported. The Fawcett Society suggests that 47,000 women are raped every year. Much has been done in the past decade. More rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police, although the conviction rate is still too low. More rapists are brought to justice, and across the criminal justice system rape victims can expect to find greater compassion, respect and sensitivity.
	That is welcome progress, and I pay tribute in particular to Vera Baird, not just for her work as Solicitor-General, but also for the campaigns she led for victims of rape and sexual abuse long before she was a Minister or an MP, and for her advice to me in preparing for this debate.
	Let us be in no doubt, though, that justice still eludes too many rape victims in too many parts of the country. Only one in 20 rapes reported to the police results in a conviction. On whatever measure we choose to use, most rapists are never held to account for their actions and most victims never see their attacker brought to justice. So what does the coalition plan to do about it?
	In its programme for government, the coalition set out its solution in just one short sentence proposing anonymity for defendants in rape trials. Those proposals, if implemented, would deter victims from coming forward and make it far more difficult for the police to charge offenders and convict rapists. We know that many rapists are serial offenders; their trail of victims often runs into double digits. Many women-for a variety of reasons-do not come forward straight away. They are afraid; they want to pretend it never happened. They are embarrassed; they feel as though they did something wrong. They are ashamed; they believe that what happened was their fault. They feel alone.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) is behaving disgracefully and not assisting a debate of this kind. Now, he really has enough experience of this House, as a Minister and as a Back Bencher, to realise that what he is doing is out of tune with how we should conduct our business in this House. I hope that I will not hear from him again.